look up from inside a song
by brinnanza
Summary: "Y'know, the army probably doesn't have much use for a surgeon who only has the use of one hand," he says, his voice deliberately casual. "Could have been your ticket home." Code for Operation Friendship, Hawkeye/BJ


Time never means much in Korea when the OR lights are on round the clock, but it's getting late when Hawkeye announces, "I'm taking over your case again, Beej." He yanks the blanket out from under BJ and shakes it out over him. "As your doctor, I'm prescribing at least six hours of sleep." It is, of course, a ridiculous luxury in a country that manages to have 30-hour days, and BJ is still capable of post-op rounds, but having been fully vindicated by BJ's actual, real injury, Hawkeye decides the nervous hen act is justified.

A smile quirks at the corner of BJ's mouth. "You're not going to sit there the whole time, are you?"

Hawkeye draws himself up imperiously. "Of course not," he says, even though he had, sort of, been planning to do just that. He's fallen asleep in worse places than this chair before, some of them even outside of Korea. "I've got more important things to do than watch you sleep."

BJ arches a brow at him, pointedly not buying whatever Hawkeye is selling. "You said yourself Traeger is a good surgeon," he says. "You don't have to babysit me; I'm fine."

"That's what you said before," Hawkeye says, nodding at BJ's bandaged wrist, "and look how that worked out."

BJ shrugs, lacking the good grace to look even slightly contrite. "Seems like it worked out okay to me."

"Only because Potter went behind your back." BJ blinks at him guilelessly, and Hawkeye flaps a hand back at him. "Look, would you just - let me do this for you, okay? Call it a doctor's prerogative." Because he does know Traeger is a good surgeon (which is annoying enough that he might not have believed it if he hadn't been in the same room while BJ was playing wounded soldier under Traeger's scalpel), but he also knows BJ, who prefers to suffer in silence rather than use his words like a big boy. His injured cat disappearing act is a lot harder to pull off with a Hawkeye-sized shadow. "You did just have surgery. There are always risks."

BJ frowns, but he doesn't protest further. He studies Hawkeye for a moment, his brow furrowed like he's facing a particularly tricky case in triage. "I am okay, you know," he says in a voice that's too soft for Hawkeye's rough edges. Hawkeye opens his mouth to argue, but BJ just carries on, gentle waves turning broken bottles into seaglass."I don't mean about my hand - that's fine too - but I mean I'm not going anywhere. I live to stitch another day."

"Yeah, I know," Hawkeye says. BJ's quiet confidence burrows under his skin, digging up all the things he tries to keep buried. He fidgets with the hem of BJ's blanket so he doesn't have to meet BJ's eyes. "Y'know, the army probably doesn't have much use for a surgeon who only has the use of one hand," he says, his voice deliberately casual. "Could have been your ticket home."

"Guess I'm not that lucky." Hawkeye can feel BJ looking at him expectantly, but he doesn't look up. "Hey, you don't think I -" BJ reaches out his good hand to squeeze Hawkeye's knee, and Hawkeye watches the interplay of tendons, the flex in his skilled fingers. It's one half of a matched set that Hawkeye knows almost as well as his own.

"I just didn't want everybody fussing over me," BJ says. "That's why I became a doctor. So I could do the fussing. I didn't even think -"

"No?" Hawkeye says, and he does look up now, raising a challenging brow.

" No ," BJ says emphatically. "Christ, Hawk, I want to get out of here, but not like that. I don't know of any one-handed surgeons, do you?"

A Pyrrhic victory is still, technically, a victory. "But you'd be home."

The idea of it drifts over BJ's features, the thought of real food and regular hours, Peg and Erin and Mill Valley. Then he clears his throat and pastes on a smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes. "Yeah, but who'd drag you home from Rosie's bar and harmonize with you in the shower?"

"If you can call that caterwauling a harmony," Hawkeye scoffs. He knows it's just a joke, can hear it in the forced lightness in BJ's tone, but guilt still twists scalpel-sharp in his gut. Words tumble out before he can stop them: "Listen, don't stay here on my account, okay? You get the chance to get out of this place, you take it."

BJ's eyebrows go up, wrinkling his forehead like that hadn't even occurred to him. Maybe it hadn't. "I'm not gonna shoot myself in the foot, Hawk, jeez. You want to get rid of me that badly?"

Hawkeye's not sure what will be left of him if he ever gets out of here, but he has to believe that all of BJ will make it home to Mill Valley. That he'll still be Peg's husband and Erin's father. That this war doesn't ruin absolutely everything it touches. "Promise me, Beej."

"Okay, okay," BJ says, concern replacing surprise. "I promise. It's that important to you?"

Hawkeye's hand hovers over BJ's on his knee, but if he takes it, he's not sure he'll be able to make himself let go again. "It has to be," he says finally, dropping his hand to pick at the hem of his robe instead. "Because the only other option is that I make you promise to stay , and I can't be that selfish."

BJ reaches for his hand and laces their fingers together. Hawkeye gives a weak tug for release, but BJ just tightens his grasp, always carelessly scuffing out all the lines of good intention Hawkeye draws between them. "There's more than two options here," BJ says. "The war has to end someday."

Hawkeye tries to pull his hand away again. He can't just sit here and listen to BJ talk about someday like this thing between them is anything more than getting through it, but BJ won't let him go. He rubs his thumb over the back of Hawkeye's hand, soothing circles like Hawkeye's the one that's injured. "This doesn't have to stay here."

"Yeah it does, Beej." Hawkeye's had enough endings already to last a lifetime, but he makes himself say, "You just wait 'til you get a glimpse of that wife and kid of yours. You'll be glad you left this here."

BJ's brow wrinkles up again like he's thinking of arguing. It's been simmering on the back burner for weeks now, BJ's boundless optimism for something that comes in more colors than khaki butting heads with a life that's olive drab. Better to be pleasantly surprised, Hawkeye figures, than to have the bottom drop out when you're not expecting it.

"Why don't you let me decide what I leave where?" BJ says. He gives Hawkeye an easy-going smile, his version of a band-aid for a bullet hole.

Hawkeye returns his own mask of a grin. "Because I'll trip over your boots when you leave them in the middle of the floor."

It's a crude ploy, messy plaster dripping into the cracks, and BJ refuses to let it set. "Hawkeye," he says, and there's a sharp edge in it, like shrapnel that just barely missed an artery. "You won't have to tell me twice to go home if I can, but you're important to me too."

Hawkeye shakes his head. "Not like that."

"No," BJ agrees, "but just as much."

The stillness chafes against Hawkeye's skin, and he tugs his hand back again. BJ releases him this time, and Hawkeye scrambles to his feet, around the back of the chair to put it between them. It's as far as he can make himself go, the memory of BJ on the table instead of behind it keeping him on a short leash. "Sure," he says easily, even though he can tell by the tension at the corner of BJ's mouth that BJ doesn't believe him. No matter - Hawkeye's spent most of his life pretending he cares more or less than he does, and the habit is second nature, the foot bone connected to the leg bone connected to the who cares bone.

Indecision flickers on BJ's features, pack it open or stitch it closed. "I guess this means you won't be keeping a bedside vigil after all?" he says finally, gesturing to Hawkeye's hasty relocation. He retreats back behind the front line, the smile on his face making it up to his eyes.

It's a lull more than a ceasefire, but Hawkeye will take it. "That was your plan all along, wasn't it?" he says, lips curving up into an answering grin. "Annoy me into leaving you alone?"

"You caught me," BJ says, relief etched in the set of his shoulders. "Go to bed, Hawkeye."

"No goodnight kiss?" Hawkeye teases, but he doesn't move any closer.

"If you're good, I'll give you a kiss in the morning."

"I'm always good!"

BJ snorts. "Goodnight, Hawk." He reaches up with his good hand to switch off the light, throwing his corner of the tent into darkness.

There's a four letter word lingering between them, the one that means someday. Someday the war will end. Someday Hawkeye will be as old as Korea makes him feel. Someday he might even let BJ say it.

For now, he'll stick with tomorrow.


End file.
